


Sarn Invictus

by icarus_chained



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Attempted Murder, Defiance, Desperation, Future Self, Gen, Near Death Experiences, Out of Body Experiences, Past Self, Prompt Fic, Regeneration, Time Travel, triumph
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-19
Updated: 2015-05-19
Packaged: 2018-03-31 08:26:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3970906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To escape immolation on Sarn (Planet of Fire), the Master casts himself temporarily back down his own timestream, and has a brief and enlightening conversation with his past self before it's safe to rejoin the present. </p>
<p>Ainley!Master & Delgado!Master compare notes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sarn Invictus

**Author's Note:**

> For a prompt on the [Obscure & British Commentfest 2015](http://lost-spook.livejournal.com/465693.html). I'm setting this during the Master's miraculous and unexplained escape in 'Planet of Fire' for the Ainley!Master, and casting him back to a point after 'Frontier in Space' for the Delgado!Master but before his degradation into Crispy!Master in 'Deadly Assassin' and 'Keeper of Traken'. Um. After that, I'm making shit up as I go?

Regardless of one's species or inclinations, it was usually somewhat disconcerting to find oneself the subject of an abrupt and inexplicable psychic barrage whilst travelling through sections of space and time that one had previously thought were unoccupied. 

The reaction that came _after_ said disconcertion, of course, was usually much more in line with the aforesaid species and inclinations

For the Master, fear, rapid, wary calculation, and a significant dose of temper were the initial responses. Almost immediately afterwards, though, he recognised the mind that had attached itself to his without so much as by-your-leave. There was a great deal less fear following that. The temper and the calculation, though, stayed behind and went into a much higher gear.

"My future self, I presume?" he purred, to a patch of empty air that was rapidly coalescing into the slightly blurred image of another man. A decently well-dressed, if slightly over-dramatic, sort of man. "That's reassuring, at the very least. A cat on his last life does begin to worry."

His voice seemed to provide the last link needed to anchor his other self in time and place. The wavery image snapped abruptly into full focus, drawing energy and matter along with it, and his future self crumpled onto the floor of his TARDIS with an exhausted snarl of fury. The Master raised an eyebrow down at him, rather unimpressed. Apparently in the future they'd lost their composure somewhere along the way. Though in his counterpart's defence, he did look more than a little singed. One might suppose that any circumstance desperate enough to warrant psychic projection back along one's own timestream might be somewhat distressing.

"Vortex _take_ him," his other self panted, hands curled into shaking fists and planted on the TARDIS' plating as he heaved himself to his knees. "Damn him. If I didn't want to kill him so very much I might almost admire him."

Both the Master's eyebrows went up at this, and an involuntary smile quirked his lips. He moved out around the console, holding down a hand to help the other to his feet. 

"I see our friend the Doctor is still alive and well in your lifetime," he noted, his amusement only ratcheting up another notch at the fulminating glare his later self sent his way. "He trapped us good and proper this time, did he?"

"He _killed_ us good and proper," the other snarled back, and the Master startled a little at the deep, seething fury of it, and the odd note underneath it. Almost fear, perhaps even hurt, and again that hint of admiration as well. A potent mix, to be sure, and only strengthened by the following words. "He stood by and watched me burn. Hah! And to think I thought he wouldn't have it in him. A fine, cold-blooded animal he's becoming."

The Master stared at him, one gloved hand firm around his counterpart's, watching the rage and terror and black humour roil around that strange/familiar face. It was a good face, he noted idly. Physically, at least. It wore their expressions well, if perhaps rather too openly for his liking. Perhaps that wasn't the face, though. Perhaps his future self simply felt no more need for self-control. An almost tempting prospect, that.

"... You almost suffered complete immolation?" he mused eventually. He drew his study downward across his companion, taking in the singes with new and scientific interest. "But you survived, obviously. Using me as an anchor for temporal projection ... Transmutation? Surely not. To render yourself completely into temporal energy without losing cohesion would require an incredible mental discipline. Not to mention a significant source of external energy ..."

"Numismaton gas, for example?" his other self asked wryly. "I was in the midst of becoming a god where our dear doctor decided to intervene and corrupt the process. It turned the fires against me rather thoroughly, but I did retain enough energy from the beginnings of the process to create a psychic outlet back down my own timestream. There should be enough to maintain it until the surge dies. At that point, I'd planned to get a coordinate lock from your TARDIS and use it to orientate onto my own when I go forward again. Hopefully that will allow me to rematerialise safely inside it in plenty of time to escape the immanent destruction of that aggravating little planet."

"Ah," the Master agreed, comprehending. "At which point the temporal waveform you're currently maintaining will also collapse, and my memory of this meeting will disappear. Leaving me with no real reward for this diverting little encounter, I might add."

His future self laughed at that. He straightened up, having regained full control of himself once more, and politely pulled his hand away to begin dusting himself off. The Master let him, stepping back a pace to avoid the soot. Black hid it well, of course, but battered velvet could contain a truly shocking volume of the stuff.

"As my past self, you might consider it paying things forward," the other offered mildly. He looked up from straightening his collar, his expression placid and controlled once more. "And it's only a minor inconvenience. I did take care not to interrupt any of our more ... precarious ventures. The point was to survive, after all."

"Why come back so far at all?" the Master asked curiously, leaning against the central console. He didn't feel quite as unwelcoming as he sounded. It was rather pleasant to converse with an equal mind once in a while. "Unless my death and whatever regeneration I found are much closer to me than I should like, you've expended rather more energy than necessary to come back so far along the stream. Wouldn't you own self have been easier?"

A rather complicated expression came over his future self, and goodness, that really _was_ an expressive face, wasn't it? They must be living quite an emotive, bombastic sort of life these days altogether.

"Ah," said his other self, with that expression they wore when they'd managed to shoot themselves quite handily in the foot. "That's rather the problem, really." He paused, studying himself carefully for a second, before shrugging. "I suppose it won't hurt to tell you. You'll forget again in an hour once I've returned, one way or another."

"Oh, absolutely," the Master encouraged lightly, waving a gloved hand between them. It actually irked him a little, that he had been used so, and would shortly forget about it. His future self probably knew that very well indeed. A little patronising sneer between selves could be forgiven on its account. "Do feel free to tell me all sorts of interesting tidbits, in that case. You know how much we enjoy gossip."

The other snorted at that. A little sourly, perhaps. "Actually I do," he noted, and the Master could guess what events he was likely thinking of. "But alright, since you asked. The reason I came back this far is because you were my last Time Lord body." The Master felt himself go dangerously still at that, and his future self grinned darkly. "Oh yes. We haven't yet attained regeneration, I'm afraid. I came back as far as you to stabilise my temporal projection against a Time Lord's physiology and consciousness. My, ah, my current form? Trakenite. After another of our dear Doctor's interferences cost us a chance at regeneration, I was forced to ... take possession, shall we say."

The Master had to take a minute to get to grips with that. A _long_ minute, maybe. The further into this regeneration he got, the larger loomed the realisation that it was his last. That very shortly he would have to struggle and fight, not to conquer, but simply to stay alive. It was an old terror, but it grew deeper and colder in him every day. To know that regeneration still lay beyond his reach, to know that ... that the Doctor, who some part of him had always felt he might perhaps ask for help, would one day turn against him so very thoroughly ...

"... How very bothersome of him," he managed at last, with an odd note of his own in it, and his future self looked at him with perfect understanding. Not sympathy, you understand. They'd never really been one for pity of any kind, and self-pity least of all. Anger was a far healthier response to pain in their opinion. But a little understanding might be allowed, here or there.

"In his defence," his future self murmured quietly, "we have tried to kill him a time or two ourselves since your time. We've succeeded, too. One of our first acts in my body. We did for him rather thoroughly indeed. It's just, you see, that the Doctor still has his regenerations. For our part, I'm afraid we had to get a little more ... creative."

Creative. Yes. Of course they had. There was a part of the Master that really wasn't surprised at all. He'd begun hoarding ways and means to extend his life for some time already. Ideas for blackmail or bribery, to get the Time Lords somehow on his side, or to swindle it out of them somehow. Other sources, scattered around time and space, that might allow him to ... to keep himself whole that little longer. He'd known, perhaps. He'd always known that he would have to find his own way to preserve himself, that no-one else could really be counted on to help. This was nothing more than confirmation.

And ... not only of their necessary independence, he thought. He looked up at his future self, this proud, angry creature standing in his TARDIS, this phantom of the future that had flung itself in extremis back across its own past, in order to cheat death once again. It wasn't only their aloneness the sight of him confirmed, was it?

"... And how is that going for us?" he asked mildly, with a thin, malicious sort of smile. "Getting creative, I mean. How are we finding that so far?"

His future smiled back, as blackly and sweetly as he'd managed himself. "We're still here," he said in answer, standing straight and proud and sneering. "Thirteen and a half regenerations on, by blood and death and some masterful swindling on my part, and a great deal of sheer, willful bloody-mindedness on yours. There's a reason I have the mental discipline to create a psycho-temporal projection of myself. You did it first. You got us a body by those means."

"... Did I?" He felt a surge of vicious pride at that, a rich, heady sense of vindication. "Well done me, then. I'd hate to have let us down."

"They won't kill us," his future self promised darkly. "Trust me. Oh, they'll try. They'll make a concerted effort to wipe us out between you and me, and our darling Doctor not least of all. He's the only one who comes close to succeeding, though. And as you can see, even he won't quite manage it."

The Master chuckled lightly, leaning forward to brush another speck of soot from his counterpart's shoulder. "Though he does come very close, it would seem," he murmured quietly. Amused more than angry, now. Victory often made one magnanimous, he'd found.

"... Close enough," the other agreed, somewhat wry and magnanimous himself. "I really didn't think he had it in him. He'll bear watching from now on. He's become something more vicious altogether, these last couple of regenerations. It'll be interesting to see how that continues."

Interesting. Yes, the Master supposed it would be. Still. There was an odd ache in his chest at the thought. A sensation almost of loss, for no particularly coherent reason. Farewell his innocent, dashing dandy, he supposed. Farewell for loss of innocence, and forward to a new and darker war. May the most determined Time Lord win.

And oh. A piece of whimsy struck him suddenly, some echo of that poor lost dandy. Human words in a Time Lord's mouth, but then Earth had changed them both, hadn't it? Not so much as Traken would, apparently, but enough to be going on with. A bygone age, Earth, the Doctor and he. Perhaps it might be no shame to acknowledge that.

"Beyond this place of wrath and tears," he said softly, and watched confusion, startlement, and a strange black humour cross his future's face in turn. A fading face, he saw. A vision of the future very close to its end. He smiled at it. They sneered in unison together, a bright, bleak grin between them. "Beyond this place of wrath and tears; Looms but the Horror of the shade; And yet the menace of the years; Finds and shall find me unafraid."

"It matters not how strait the gate," said the fading spectre of his future self, rich and triumphant even as he was pulled away. "How charged with punishments the scroll; I am the _Master_ \---"

Then he was gone, a strange ripple in the emptiness of time and space, a half-remembered fragment of the future that vanished even as one tried to hold onto it. The Master's mind staggered, skipped a beat, as though waking from a dream, and all at once he was left looking around his empty TARDIS in paranoid confusion, wondering why he felt like someone should be there, and why some fragment of a human poem should be echoing in his head. 

It seemed important, though. For some reason, whatever strange psychic seed had been planted in his mind, it seemed important to voice it out loud. It wasn't a bad poem, really. For human words, they'd always held a sentiment he rather approved of. And so, feeling a strange combination of foolish, confused, and triumphant, that last for reasons he wasn't wholly certain of, the Master spoke the words out loud, into the empty silence:

"---I am the Master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul."

**Author's Note:**

> The poem the Master is quoting is of course William Ernest Henley's [Invictus](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/182194), which also lets me use the title to riff off 'Sol Invictus', the unconquered sun, just because.


End file.
